Tom Russell

Making a feature is hard work, and it's easy to screw it up and even easier to get discouraged. Maybe you're one of those filmmakers who has an embarrassingly bad romantic comedy "calling card" wastin...

I always wanted to make video games, but I struggled with learning programming. Thanks to GameMaker, I didn't need to.

Parents, educators, and the medical establishment have disparaged nose-picking for years. It's time to stop the hate.

I was worried when I heard that Mutual Appreciation was about a struggling musician. Films about artists tend to really be about nothing at all. Thankfully, Mutual Appreciation is the rare exception...

The first film I ever worked on was an ambitious project, a period piece with over eighty speaking parts, just as many locations, numerous trick shots and 150+ pages of script. It took over six years ...

Too often, people see filmmaking as a kind of investment. And should that film fail to secure distribution, or, indeed, make it into a festival (as many do), they feel like they've lost money. But t...

I first saw Andrew Bujalski's "Funny Ha-Ha" over two years ago on the Sundance Channel. I've watched it a few times since then, and every time-- every single time-- I come away from it with something...

Most independent filmmakers operate under the delusion that if you make a good movie, it will get into festivals, win awards, and get distribution. It's a very appealing, very American idea, but it is...